Specialty Systems Project
There is a myriad of IT systems supporting the activities of specialists, ranging from small systems developed by one enthusiast and working in one hospital, to major national audits and registries. Some of the largest of these systems contain records dating back decades and provide invaluable data about clinical process and treatments.
Specialists have been concerned that the future of 'their' systems might be threatened by the development of the new NHS Care Record Service solutions.
The Specialty Systems Project has been set up to address this concern, to work with staff from these specialties, to define their requirements and to look at how these requirements could be met by the new NHS Care Record Service solutions.
The steps in the process are as follows:
- A survey of existing systems through specialist societies to get a feel for what systems each specialty is currently using and what they do.
- Specialties signal their wish to join the Specialty Systems Project.
- Selected specialties work with NHS CFH teams to describe what their various systems do and what their outputs are.
- The descriptions of their specialist requirements are then compared to the original specification for the NHS Care Record Service as prepared by NHS CFH, to see how much of the functionality was planned for delivery in the original contract.
- The descriptions of the specialty requirements are given to the suppliers and a way forward agreed.
Two specialties (Renal and Ophthalmology) have already trialled the process and have produced descriptions of their requirements.
The survey of systems currently in use by specialist societies is now underway and the results will be available in August 2009.
For this project to be successful, we need strong and authoritative leadership from the specialties, and for this purpose we aim to involve the specialist societies, asking them to identify individuals to work with us, and also asking which other specialties they would naturally want to collaborate with.
Dr Mark Dancy
Consultant Cardiologist and NHS CFH Clinical Lead for Specialty Systems
